Yes, it is true. I FINALLY made it Monterrico. And those of you who know me well know that I came to Guatemala not just to hang out, but to go to Monterrico to "Save the Sea Turtles!" Well, I didn't save any turtles. Actually, I was offered turtle eggs to eat. And though I was almost tempted, because I like trying exotic things, I couldn't bring myself to try them, being that I had come down here to help them propagate their species. What a moral pickle I was in. Once again, somewhat randomly, Pajaro and I decided that "tomorrow" we're going to Monterrico, so we made a bunch of tacos for the road and hopped on a bus. This trip required 5 legs, I believe. And we accomplished the trip in 5 hours. Panajachel to Cocales, Cocales to Esquintla, Esquintla to Taxisco, and because by this time we were sick of buses, we shelled out a couple of Q extra to splurge on a tuk-tuk to La Avellana. From La Avellana we had to catch a boat to Monterrico through the mangrove filled canal. Woo! I was all over that. Once in Monterrico we lugged our backpacks through town, the whole of town, since the entire town is only one long-ish street from the boat docks to the ocean. And our hotel was right on the ocean (not a surprise since ALL the hotels are right on the ocean) so we walked along the black sand beach until we found it. It was so fantastic to see the sea again! The first thing I saw was my first pelican cruising the waves just off shore. What cool birds! They are like surfers without boards or wipe-outs. :) We spent the first couple of days running in and out of the waves, filling our pants with sand and drinking a ton of salt water, then swimming in the pool, lying in hammocks and eating and eating and eating some more. On the ocean, how can you not eat seafood? Even I had to check out some of the ever present fried fish and shrimp. But by the third day or so we both realized that this was going to be a slightly more expensive venture than we had anticipated and decided to go to the bank. Oops. The nearest bank is in Chiquimulilla. Where is that? Oh, it's an hour and half away. So back across the canal we go. :) The good thing about our impromptu trip to the ATM was that we met a couple from London on the way back and ended up hanging out with them for the rest of the week. (This was helped by the fact that we moved hotels and ended up neighbors.) And they both spoke decent Spanish, so Pajaro wasn't left out. At the boat dock before leaving for the banks, I ended up talking to an eco tour guide who told me about the tours he leads, namely, a sunrise canal boat tour, and a turtle hunting tour. Well that got me thinking, I do not need to pay somebody 50Q to show me how to walk on the beach with a flashlight, I think I can figure out how to do that myself. So Pajaro and I struck out one night and walked a couple kilometers down the beach, winding my battery-less flashlight the whole time and sweeping the waves and the beach looking for mama turtles. Sadly, we did not find any, but the experience was what I wanted anyway. And we diverted ourselves by chasing the crabs and investigating mysterious bits of foam. I did see turtles though, when Pajaro and I went to the Tortuguario down the beach. This was a conservation organization very similar to the one where I was going to work for ARCAS. There were alligators, iguanas, prehistoric fish and, of course, sea turtles. Its main function is to gather turtle eggs on the beach before poachers find them, gather them in and when they hatch, release them into the water again. One way that the Guatemalan government has tried to cut down on poaching has been to make it legal, but only if the "hunters" donate 20% of the eggs to a conservationist group. They then receive a ticket that states how many eggs they are allowed to have and sell. That seemed ok to me, but then in the pueblo Hawaii we saw a big bucket with 400 turtle eggs covered with water. That means that the conservation groups got 80 eggs. 80. That's it. I realized how small a number 20% is. And so few of those baby turtles are even going to survive to adulthood, much less make it to the age where they can reproduce. That is so sad. Anyway, I wanted to check out ARCAS, where I was going to volunteer, so Pajaro and I grabbed a rickety old bus 20 minutes down a bumpy dirt road to the other Tortuguario at Hawaii beach. It was pretty much the same as the other one, but smaller. We looked around a bit then headed to the beach. I don't know why, but this beach was so much cooler! We trekked through the intense sun down the beach, wading through the waves and drawing in the sand (we are such kids sometimes) until we reached the pueblo of Hawaii. Honestly, I don't think it should even be called a pueblo. There were a couple of houses and a couple of stores and the bus passes through a couple times a day and that's it. But it was a nice little stop. We grabbed a couple of sodas and talked to the locals and played with the little local boys before heading back to Monterrico. I'm glad I went to ARCAS to see it, but now I'm also glad that I didn't stay. I had planned on staying there for months, (before I got stuck in Pana) but it's actually pretty lonely out there, even with the so-called pueblo right down the way. I might have made it a week there, but no more. Back in Monterrico, the Brits and I decided that we would like to take up the guide guy on his sunrise boat tour. We woke up at 530 in the morning, (the earliest I've been up in, I don't know, years?) and walked through town in the pitch black to find his lancha. He surely had done this tour a thousand times, because I couldn't see a darn thing, but he steered his boat out through the mess of mangroves and into the canal without being able to see. So we spent the next 2 hours watching the sun rise over the hills and the canal, checking out the mangrove trees and the 4 separate volcanoes in the distance, and observing the fishermen throwing our their nets for Mojarra and shrimp. Actually, the cooler things out there were the birds. I kept thinking how my dad and grandma Ruth would have been standing up in the boat with their binoculars and bird books trying to figure out what everything was. I wouldn't have remembered what any of them were if I'd heard their names in English, but I heard them in Spanish so there was no chance in infierno that I was going to remember them. :) But it was a fabulous tour, just beautiful. On the beach one evening Pajaro and I met two young women from Seville, Spain! So I was immediately interested, because you know how I love to talk about Spain, especially my home city of Seville. They were an interesting pair though. One of them had been living in France and for whatever reason had decided that if she got pregnant, she would leave. Well, she got pregnant, called her friend in Seville and the 2 of them, plus the friend's 2 young sons left for Mexico. Well that was months ago and they've been living by selling their art and changing cities when they can. Isana had her baby in northern Guatemala 2 months ago, and is now traveling with her newborn son, Airo. Holy crap. That sounds like the scariest adventure ever. She is a totally cool lady though, and I hope all goes well for that group. On another note, I met a man the other day, also from Seville, and after talking to him, and the Spanish ladies in Monterrico I honestly wonder how on EARTH I managed to learn Spanish in Andalucia. Their accent is so outrageous! But of course I didn't notice that when I was there. And two months ago, I spoke with the same accent. I seriously went from the most difficult Spanish accent there was in Spain, to the easiest, here in Guatemala. :) Ok, the rest of our time in Monterrico was mostly spent swimming, hammocking and eating, with breaks in between where we would try to get rid of the sand in our ears. Finally, after a week we decided that we were done with the sun for a while and it was time to go back to our non-salty lake. So here I am, in Pana once again.